Fay Weldon, who died on Wednesday, was an exceptionally prolific writer of television drama up until the end of the last century. Two programmes have regularly been mentioned in the coverage of her life – her work on Upstairs, Downstairs (LWT/ ITV 1971-75), including writing the first episode, and her sensational serial adaptation of her […]
John Finch, who died on 13 February, the day after his 97th birthday, was one of the last survivors of the first generation of Granada Television writers who helped to establish the company as the most progressive of the original ‘Big Four’ ITV companies that launched in 1955-56. While Associated-Rediffusion, ATV and ABC Television were […]
On 18 March 2004 I interviewed Tony Garnett for a book I was researching about the screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin.[1] The interview began with Garnett talking about his debut as a television actor in Kennedy Martin’s first television play, Incident at Echo Six (1958) and his role as a young tearaway in one of Kennedy […]
By Simon Farquhar Written by John Hopkins, directed by Herbert Wise and produced by Graeme McDonald. Broadcast on BBC1 at 9.25pm on Tuesday 3 February 1976 On a good day, no television playwright could churn up emotional nausea quite as mercilessly as John Hopkins. Originally a floor manager at Granada television, in 1957 his life […]
by Simon Farquhar Written by John Harvey-Flint, produced by Graeme McDonald and directed by James Ferman. Broadcast at 9.25pm on Monday 11 June 1973. It feels regrettably apt that John Harvey-Flint’s quietly fascinating Play for Today, Edward G – Like the Film Star, has fallen into obscurity, junked shortly after its sole broadcast in 1973. […]
Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th October 2020 Beginning on BBC1 on Thursday 15 October 1970, and continuing until 1984, Play for Today was one of the most important series ever of British television drama. Running to over 300 individual plays and regularly commanding audiences of several millions, the series won a reputation for artistic experiment […]
by Katie Crosson Written by Carol Bunyan, produced by John Norton and directed by Alistair Clark. Broadcast at 9.25pm on Tuesday 3 March 1981. Carol Bunyan has had a prolific career across theatre and television, but her association with Play for Today is often left out of selections, lists of favourites, commemorations and histories of […]
By Simon Farquhar Written by E. A. Whitehead, directed by Claude Whatham, produced by Graeme McDonald. Broadcast on BBC1 at 9.25pm on Tuesday 23 March 1976. Through the BBC Plays Department, the Royal Court and the burgeoning fringe, Britain was thrusting some seriously good writers into the spotlight in the 1970s, and it is telling […]
Of the 298 plays shown as part of Play for Today from 1970-84 just 34 were written by women.[1] 26 women writers, in total, contributed to Play for Today, several writing two plays (Julia Jones wrote four). One of these writers was Paula Milne, whose two Plays for Today were broadcast in 1982. They came […]
By Tom May Written by Colin Welland, directed by Michael Apted and produced by Graeme McDonald. Broadcast on BBC1 at 9.25pm on Monday 22 January 1973 When leaving my last job as a lecturer in a Further Education College, I enjoyed a pint with soon-to-be former colleagues in the Town Wall pub in Newcastle upon […]
Forgotten Television Drama